Japanese guitar prodigy Yuto Miyazawa to perform in Hong Kong
Teen who had his first guitar lesson aged four and has played live with Ozzy Osbourne is set to rock the city
lives? Some people in Japan must think so, as 15-year-old guitarist Yuto Miyazawa was included in a local TV documentary's list of "100 Japanese citizens that will change the world".
An early passion for the electric guitar and heavy metal has certainly transformed his life. At the age of eight, Yuto earned an entry in the Guinness World Records as the "youngest professional guitar player" for having been paid for a significant number of television performances.
Child prodigies are not unusual in classical music, but the precocity of Yuto's talent is unusual in rock. He was less than two years old when he first became enamoured of the guitar, at first strumming toy instruments, and later a ukulele.
His father played, and was apparently quite capable, but was rapidly eclipsed by his son who was not yet four years old when he took his first guitar lesson. He decided to permanently hang up his own axe and encourage Yuto to develop his talent — this was already considerable — when Yuto reached the age of five, and his parents sent a home video of him to a local TV station.
In the pre-YouTube era Yuto might have remained a purely local phenomenon, but several video clips of his performances went viral — most notably a virtuoso rendition of a fiendishly difficult heavy metal guitar tour de force — Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads' .
Rhoads, Miyazawa's first guitar hero, was himself a precocious talent who turned professional at 16, but was killed in a plane crash at the age of 25.
Yuto's YouTube videos have attracted more than 70 million views and drew the attention of programmers for US as well as Japanese television. He was booked to perform his version of on the in 2009.
Opportunities to perform with some of the most accomplished electric guitarists in the world followed — including the great Les Paul, by that time already in his 90s.
A particularly proud moment for Miyazawa came in 2010 when he was able to perform Rhoads' parts live with an impressed Ozzy Osbourne. He also joined the band Moonalice (then featuring the session guitar legend G.E. Smith) to perform at Eric Clapton's Crossroads guitar festival.
Heavy metal guitar playing is largely a matter of speed and flash, and he has that in spades
Yuto has played venues as large as New York's Madison Square Garden, and as small as The Wanch in Jaffe Road, and seems to have a particular — and clearly reciprocated — fondness for Hong Kong. In February 2013 he celebrated his 13th birthday with a performance at the Fringe Club.
It was clear then that Yuto wanted to stretch himself beyond just recreating iconic guitar performances such as and Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock deconstruction of the . He was already writing, playing and singing his own material. His vocals have been less enthusiastically reviewed than his guitar playing, but he has plenty of time to mature.
See Yuto perform on Ellen
It remains to be seen whether he can build a career as an artist on the strength of his musical talent alone once the novelty appeal of his youth has receded — at 15, he is already age-appropriate rather than extraordinary for music which has a core audience of disaffected teenagers.
While extensively documented on YouTube, Yuto has so far released few professional recordings.
A solo single (Ikimasho) came out in 2009, and an EP, , and a single, , made with Tokyo group The Robotix were issued in 2012.
His technical ability is certainly not in doubt — heavy metal guitar playing is largely a matter of speed and flash, and he has that in spades. However, there are signs that he has more expressive potential. Among the YouTube videos is a sensitive reading of one of the great jazz-rock electric guitar ballad performances — Jeff Beck's interpretation of Stevie Wonder's .
He also performs Carlos Santana's — an instrumental which principally requires soul rather than speed.
It will be interesting to see which songs he chooses to perform for his two shows at Central venue Orange Peel on May 2, but he can be expected to perform at least some of his YouTube hits, which include anthems by Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well, of course, as .
